Black Ribbon
by Nautica Dawn
Summary: The only thing that tied it all together was the black ribbon made of old silk and dried tears. /ItaSaku\


_**Black Ribbon**_

_Hikari Adams_

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A/N: I swear I'm working on 'Scarlet Flower' and 'Snow'; I just needed to get this out of my mind. It was inspired by Blue Rodeo's _Black Ribbon_

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She was a force of nature. She was the lightening that ripped apart the sky, and she was the rain that washed the world clean. She was the howling gale that demolished the coasts, and she was the gentle spring zephyr that breathed new life into the earth. She was the cruel thunder that shook the world to pieces, and she was the dirt that gave birth to the wildflowers of summer. She was the raging inferno that turned forests into black scars, and she was the mild fire that gave man both warmth and light. She was the silver moon and the golden sun.

She was the great destroyer and the great healer.

It was the only way he knew how to describe her. She was precious, he knew that, and the burden that she carried as the woman of light and shadow was always threatening to break her. Her heart was forever broken, and she was forever hiding her face behind a veil that few could see.

He didn't know why she captivated him so. Perhaps it was the duality of her, the duality that matched the earth around her. Perhaps it was the way she was a walking contradiction. Perhaps it was the way she wore a black ribbon threaded through her hair.

The first time he had met her; she had been but a child. He had ignored her in favor of the supernova that was her blonde teammate, the demon of nine tails. Again he had ignored her for the black hole that was his brother, her damaged teammate with no worth. But her, the girl who danced like a ribbon in the wind when she fought, she had eluded his notice for so long.

The first time he saw her, he truly saw. He was half blind, but he didn't think that any being could ignore the sight that was she. The nature child was too bright, too bold against the muted world that was hers for the taking. She had been standing atop a pile of rubble that had once been a mountain. The wind was toying with her hair, cherry blossom pink he noticed. She was all of nineteen, and dressed in ANBU regalia. She said nothing, but those eyes that put the green of new leaves to shame, said it all.

She was nature incarnate, and he would not get in her way.

The second time he saw her, she was twenty-three, and the pain of her shattered heart had overtaken her. She was not the supernova or the black hole, nor was she the star that was her shisou, nor was she the nebula of her fleeting sensei. She was the planet of dirt and clouds, of wind and water, and she was in pain.

He was not one to admit fear, but in the secret recesses of his mind, he would honestly say that he had been afraid of her. She was, at that time, the sorrowful rain of an autumn day, but she was still the nature of the world. She could still turn into the fierce hurricane that battered the beaches each spring. Still, she was fascinating, and he took the bait that was the wounded nature child leaning against a tree, ribbons of red (_it looked black in the night that wrapped around them like a security blanket_) criss-crossing her moonlight flesh.

She had said nothing, just as she had the first time, and she had let him close to her. Her emerald eyes had held all the answers, and his aching eyes, onyx instead of ruby, could read them only when she allowed it.

She was nature incarnate, and she knew how to care for those that respected her.

The third time he saw her was mere weeks after the second. She was running, fleeting as the wind and as urgent as the rain that caressed her. She didn't see him, and he didn't move to let her. She was stunning as she fled from those that wished to hold her in a cage of tarnished gold.

Her breath had been ragged from the exertion of running, and she had glanced each and every way for some sign of asylum. Her jade orbs had flickered his way briefly, and he was surprised to find what he did.

She was nature incarnate and she was not invincible.

The fourth time he saw her was a year after the third. The metal plate that had once graced her head was gone, and a simple black ribbon was in its place. She didn't fight him, as he had expected, instead she stepped forward with footfalls as light as snow, and placed one cool hand against his eyes.

She had stated the obvious, he was almost blind, and she told him with all the bluntness of a hailstorm that there was nothing that could stop it. Then she surprised him, she coolly told him to sit down at the rickety table she kept in her kitchen, and she handed him a plate. She had said it was because he looked like he hadn't had a decent bite in years.

He had simply decided that she was more than a walking contradiction.

She was nature incarnate and as such, she was the great mother.

He had stayed close after that. She was too hypnotic to leave alone. She cared for the sick of the tiny village that she stayed in, and she cared for him when he came to her bleeding and in pain. It was a time a peace, but peace was as fleeting as the clay birds his blonde colleague called art. The leaves of fire found her in time, and he once again had to watch the wind carry its daughter to another haven where she could hide. He lost her for a time, but he understood her by that point.

She was nature incarnate and she went where she was needed.

He found her again when she was all of twenty-five. It had been by the pitter-patter of her voice, like the rain that tried in vain to scrub away man's indelible sins from the flesh of the earth. He had approached her carefully, and though he could no longer see, he could feel the sunny warmth of her sympathetic smile. Broken and black with pain, she had smile for him, and tied that black ribbon over his ruined eyes.

She had guessed, quite accurately, that he was just like her. Something that had lost its worth, a tool that was to be destroyed by its former master. She let him stay in the place that smelled of the southern forests and the constant rain, and she cared for him as only the earth can care for her forsaken children come home.

She was nature incarnate and she had given him a second chance.

He wasn't sure if it was out of pity that she let him stay with her. He didn't particularly care. He was blind and she was forever broken. They were damaged goods, tied together by a black ribbon. She was something precious, and she kept her distance.

It took him seven months to figure it out. When he did, he pulled her close in an action that was completely out of his sphere of normal. She was broken, and she needed to be held.

She was nature incarnate, but even she needed someone to care for her.

He couldn't care, and she knew that. Still, he tried to show what little gratitude existed in his tainted soul. She tried to show him what little light existed in her own soul, that healing light that was being smothered by the grime of humanity. It was strange, he sometimes thought, that an angel would have a soul filthier than even the most hardened criminal. Of course, he would later remember that nothing about her made sense.

She was no longer a child, but instead a jaded earth-woman of twenty-eight when it all fell apart.

He wished that he could have done something, but in his life of stillness, he had had no need to fight. All he could do was stand to the side, not seeing anything with or without her black ribbon tied around his worthless eyes. All he could do was listen as the child of nature begged and pleaded with those that had once caged her in the tarnished cage she had fought so hard to escape.

All he could do was listen as she fell. All he could do was smell the rusty scent of blood, cherry blood that was the life of the world. All he could do was feel the vivacity of the forest fade. The light of the sun seemed to dim, and the earth seemed to dry as the rain that fell stopped reaching the parched soil.

She was nature incarnate and everything died with her.

He was not killed immediately. Instead, he was taken to her cage in her place, a compliant prisoner. He was questioned, but he said nothing. All he wanted was to be left alone. He was always quiet, but that nature child had captivated him in a way that no puzzle ever had. Her black ribbon was kept around his clouded eyes to hide the storms of blindness that he had stopped fighting. It smelled faintly of the forest, he once noticed, and he was once again reminded of how that strange woman of immeasurable power had found her way into the darkest depths of his mind.

When he was finally executed, it was a sunny day. The wind blew lightly throughout the execution site, and tugged at the black ribbon. It was removed from his eyes as the list of his transgressions was read, and then the time came. The shadow of a tainted fire asked him for his last words, and then he spoke.

He spoke of a girl that was the lightening and the sea, the wind and the sun, the rain and the moon, the earth and the forests, and they let him. It was a small story, and one that was threaded with a black ribbon.

She had been forever broken, forever precious, and she had always needed to be held. She had died tragically young after witnessing the darkness of the world that gave her life, of the world that she gave life to. She had captivated the moving shadows, and brought light to a world painted with old and fresh blood alike. She had charmed a monster, and with a black ribbon keeping her true face forever hidden.

When she died, it was to the world's tears.

When he followed her at the hands of her former wardens, it was to the brightness of the sun.

He had spent years watching her, and years by her side. She was nature incarnate and she had managed to breathe life into the being that had lost it all. He was the being that could not love, that could not feel, but something told him that in a different lifetime, maybe things could have been different.

The girl with the cherry blossom hair, just as pink as her namesake, and the boy with the ruby eyes that faded with the clouds that took over were two that should never have met. They lived in different spectrums of life, and yet they had managed to collide in that rotten world. Theirs was a story that was simple, though the people were complex. There was no connection, most thought, when they heard the whispered names years later. There was only one thing that tied nature incarnate to the moving shadows.

The only thing that tied it all together was the black ribbon made of old silk and dried tears.

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A/N: I'm so sorry if this makes no sense whatsoever. If you have any questions, just send them to me and I'll do my best to explain.

Soundtrack:

OneRepublic: _All Fall Down, Apologize_

Blue Rodeo: _Black Ribbon, This Town, Where I Was Before_

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_Your reviews fuel my eco-friendly imagination,_

_Hikari Adams_


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